Original scientific paper
BETWEEN FRAGMENTING AND MULTIPLYING: EXPANSION OF SERBIAN AND CROATIAN ANTI-WAR INITIATIVES
Bojan Bilić
Abstract
This paper follows the almost contemporaneous emergence of the two primary anti-war initiatives in Belgrade and Zagreb to explore how they acted as hotbeds from which permanent human rights organisations appeared in the newly created nation-states. Drawing mostly upon in-depth interviews with the anti-war activists from Serbia and Croatia, I argue that the dominant patterns of protest expansion in these two countries were different. While cooperations and tensions existed among the anti-war groups in both cases, the Anti-War Campaign of Croatia acted as a broker leading towards a multiplication of civic initiatives. On the other hand, the Belgrade Centre for Anti-War Action was characterised by ideological, professional and personal divisions which caused a rapid fragmentation of anti-war undertakings. This paper outlines the main reasons for such expansion patterns (scale shift) and discusses them in the light of recent theoretical advances in political contention studies.
Keywords
anti-war initiatives; Croatia; Serbia; fragmentation; multiplication
Hrčak ID:
98575
URI
Publication date:
27.12.2012.
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